


sundown sickness

by 1derspark



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nicky the motherhen we all need, Post-Canon, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28472391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1derspark/pseuds/1derspark
Summary: “Amore mio,you really must shower,” he said again this time with a little more steel.There was a pathetic sounding sniffle from where Joe was tucked underneath his neck. Nicky tugged on Joe’s hair to pull him up.“Nicky,” he whined, nuzzling at Nicky’s throat. “Don’t make me, my love. Please.” He shuffled back into his hiding spot, rubbing his face against Nicky’s collarbone, settling in as a kitten did in a patch of sunlight.But more sticky. And sniffly. Hot as all hell, and not in a good way.(Or Joe is a clingy sick person, and Nicky is a mother-hen.)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 28
Kudos: 294





	sundown sickness

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! Happy New Year!
> 
> I was not supposed to be writing this, I was supposed to be doing Big Bang, but Gina posted that costume check video that made us all go feral, and seeing Marwan do that little neck nuzzle with Luca made me actually scream.
> 
> Thus, soft cuddly sick Joe was born. 
> 
> Not beta-ed! So all mistakes are mine.
> 
> Enjoy!

One of the more interesting things Nicky found about being immortal was sickness.

Only occasionally, they got sick. With far less frequency than a normal person. Nicky had spent more than his fair share of time in sick wards and hauling boil riddled bodies to carts in times of plague. Nicky had the most medical training out of the team, he was good at it and he liked taking care of people, so he’d encountered a wide array of all nasty things that haunted the human body in his time. 

When they did get sick it was usually with the more serious things. Bubonic plague, Spanish flu, malaria, smallpox, yellow fever. He recalled with distaste one memorable occasion in 1890s Panama where he and the gang had spent about a week holed up in some fishy-smelling shack by the water. Shivering and sweating their brains out, until the malaria-induced fever had run its course through them all. Andy he thought, may have died and come back at one point, but he had trouble remembering. 

Still, such occurrences were rare, and everyday irks like the common cold were something that none of them really had to worry about.

They’d all been around for so long Nicky assumed they’d built up an immunity to most diseases.

But once in a while, there was always a surprise. 

“Uh, Nicky?” Nile shouted from the bedroom. “He’s reciting sad poetry to me now.”

Nicky shook his head and smiled, giving one last good stir to the pot of soup he had going on the stove. He ladled some into a bowl, paired with some slices of fresh bread and a few plain crackers on the side, put it on the tray, and followed Nile’s increasingly concerning calls to the bedroom.

She opened the door for him, looking more than a little miffed, shooting narrowed glances at the blanket-covered heap on the bed with tufts of curly black hair peeking out, that could only be Joe.

“You can go, Nile,” Nicky said, setting the tray down on the nightstand. The room was dark and stuffy, the curtains pulled tight on all of the windows to keep the light out. When he turned the lamp on there was a pathetic sounding whimper from the pile of blankets, followed by grumpy mumbling in congested-sounding Arabic. Nile’s nose twitched in irritation.

“I’ve got the big baby covered,” he said with a wink, talking behind his hand.

Nile rolled her eyes, but laughed and darted away, more than eager to get away from Joe who was peering out from under the covers with a betrayed look on his face.

“Oh Yusuf, leave her be, she’s not accustomed to your dramatic antics yet,” Nicky chastised, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 

Joe crawled over to Nicky, pulling the upper half of his body into Nicky’s lap. He smooshed his nose into Nicky’s midsection and wrapped one of his arms around Nicky’s lower back. 

“I’m not being dramatic,” he mumbled into the fabric of Nicky’s shirt.

“Just a little bit,” Nicky said. Joe had a cold, or a strain of the flu, Nicky was sure. The typical coughing, congested, headache, nausea-inducing nuisance. 

Two days before when Joe had slept in later than he usually did, which was a feat in itself considering the man was loath to take himself out of bed before noon when they had a day’s off, Nicky went immediately into doctor-mode. Taking his temperature, feeding him fluids, checking his symptoms. He’d spent a good amount of time huddled over Nile’s laptop googling things just to make sure Joe hadn’t caught anything bad. 

Joe didn’t get worse, hovering more in the area of common cold than a life-ending primordial disease, and Nicky could relax. 

But, Joe, as he always was when he got sick, was more than a little clingy. 

Nicky didn’t mind. Of course he didn’t, seeing Joe unhappy made him ache. It made him twitchy with the nervous energy of someone with little power to help, or soothe. There was nothing he could do to make the sickness pass. It would eventually, especially something so minor. Probably in another day or two, when it would take a normal person at least a week to recover. 

So Nicky did what he did best for those he loved. He cooked and cleaned and soothed and popped cough drops down Joe’s throat. 

Andy disappeared from their safehouse the moment Joe started showing symptoms, a bottle of vodka in hand, a backpack slung over her shoulder, with a promise to be back in a week.

It wasn’t like she was scared of catching whatever Joe got, now that she was mortal. It was more that she would rather sleep in some stranger’s bed for a few days than deal with Joe’s constant… whining. 

Joe was demanding when he was sick.

Judging by Nile’s swift departure from the room, Nicky guessed she shared the same sentiment as their leader.

“Sit,” Nicky said patting Joe on the back. “You should eat something, keep your strength up.”

“I don’t know if I can. I threw up this morning,” Joe said, pushing himself up with his elbows. He rolled over onto his back with a grunt and shimmed up against the headboard, slumping onto the pillows with a huff.

“I know, _amore._ ” Nicky picked up the tray and laid it gingerly over Joe’s lap. Soup, bread, crackers, a glass of water, and a flower in a slim little vase. A scraggly purple thing Nile must have picked up off the road on her early walk today, but it brightened the room nonetheless. 

“But if you feel like you can eat, try?” He fixed Joe with a soft-eyed look he’d spent about nine-hundred years perfecting. 

Joe squinted at him, absolutely sure he was being played, but leaned in to scoop up a spoonful of soup anyway. He considered for a moment after swallowing, but it seemed his nausea had abated, and he managed to finish two-thirds of the soup along with a slice of bread and a couple of crackers. 

When he was done, and Nicky moved the tray back onto the nightstand, Joe flopped onto Nicky’s side with no warning and little finesse. He squirmed until he found a comfortable spot, which meant he was basically laying on top of Nicky, one leg thrown over his side, arms curled up on his chest, and his nose tucked up against Nicky’s neck.

Nicky brought his arms up around Joe’s shoulders and rubbed circled down his back. He’d sweated through his t-shirt in the time that it had taken Nicky to make the food, there were damp patches all down his shoulder blades. 

“Oh, Joe. You need to change,” Nicky said.

“No,” Joe whimpered long and drawn out against Nicky’s throat. Nicky could feel the vibrations and the abnormal hot-sour dampness that came with sick-breath. “I don’t feel good Nicolo, I don’t want to get up.”

“A shower would make you feel better,” Nicky tried, pressing assuring kisses onto Joe’s head, through the thatch of lovely curls. 

More disgruntled grumbling was his answer. And Nicky was starting to feel hot, from the blankets and Joe’s weight, and the fever he was no doubt still running. 

“ _Amore mio,_ you really must shower,” he said again this time with a little more steel.

There was a pathetic sounding sniffle from where Joe was tucked underneath his neck. Nicky tugged on Joe’s hair to pull him up.

“ _Nicky,”_ he whined, nuzzling at Nicky’s throat. “Don’t make me, my love. Please.” He shuffled back into his hiding spot, rubbing his face against Nicky’s collarbone, settling in as a kitten did in a patch of sunlight.

But more sticky. And sniffly. Hot as all hell, and not in a good way.

“I’ll help you,” Nicky whispered, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He wiggled out from underneath Joe, despite the man’s half-hearted and slowed attempts to keep Nicky pinned, and walked into the bathroom to start running a cold shower. 

Making sure Joe’s favored soaps were out, and lighting a candle to dissipate some of the stale air, he went back into the bedroom to collect his lover.

Luckily Joe had at least gotten himself to sit up, blankets tossed aside on the far end of the bed. It took a few more coaxing kisses and soft touches to his neck and back of the head to get Joe to stand and follow him into the bathroom, but it was nothing Nicky wasn’t happy to do.

He got Joe undressed and stripped down after him, following into the shower. Joe used him as a support, leaning with his forehead against Nicky’s shoulder, his back to the water stream. Nicky held him for a while basking in the clean-coldness of the water, refreshing, and hopefully bringing Joe’s fever down. 

Eventually, he reached over for the soap and lathered up his hands, rubbing Joe down in sweet vanilla and rose-scented bubbles. He kept his touches chaste, scrubbing every area of Joe clean with the same kind of fervor. There were many times in his life that Nicky had taken advantage of a cuddly, lovey Joe in the shower for some more amorous activities. But there was no time for that now, he cleaned Joe up until the sweat and the stench of sickness was abated, then he turned the water off.

He’d brought a clean set of sweats and shirt for Joe to sleep with into the bathroom. Joe needed a little help getting his legs through the foot holes, and Nicky got a kiss in gratitude, but otherwise, it went smoothly. They were back out into the bedroom in no time.

“Would you mind if I let some light in?” Nicky asked, eager to get rid of the gloomy air the room had.

“No, go ahead _hayati_ ,” Joe answered, already slipping under the covers. 

Nicky opened up the curtains halfway with a flourish, speckling the room in light. The sun was setting, and the light was a warm and gentle gold, soothing to the eye. 

He made his way back to the bed, where Joe was waiting. Nicky laid down on his back, then Joe came to him, curling up on his chest. 

Settled, Nicky studied the orange light filtering in through the window, coating their skin in a gentle glow.

He could feel the heaviness of sleep behind his eyes, Joe was already halfway there, his eyelids shutting in longer and longer increments, before shaking himself awake to play with the collar of Nicky’s shirt.

“Thank you,” he croaked, splitting the silence of the room.

“Hmm? For what?” Nicky said stroking back some of Joe’s damp flyaways.

“Taking care of me.” He pressed a wet kiss to the base of Nicky’s neck. “You always take such good care of me.”

“Of course I do,” Nicky said. “You deserve it. You deserve the world.” 

Joe hummed, oozing with contentment, the soup and the shower and Nicky’s touch having soothed his earlier woes. He raised his chin up in a wordless demand for a kiss and did not relent until he was granted one. Two. Three. Maybe more.

They kissed slow and sweet. Joe tasted a bit sour with sickness, but Nicky didn’t care. Every one of his kisses was a gift. He was just as awed and blessed by them today as he was the first time. It was a privilege he’d promised himself long ago he would never take for granted.

Soon, their exchanges ventured off into sleepy sloppiness and Joe slumped down onto his chest with a contented sigh.

Nicky hummed a soft lullaby under his breath, a hymn old as he was, and half the words forgotten until he felt Joe’s breathing even out into sleep. He returned to the glow of sundown and watched it until the sky went dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Come check me out on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/1derspark)!
> 
> And as always comments and kudos are appreciated and feed the beast :)


End file.
